Standard Score

A standard score, also known as a z-score, measures how far a specific value is from the average (mean) of a dataset, in terms of standard deviations. It helps compare scores from different distributions by indicating whether a value is above or below average and by how much. For example, a z-score of +2 means the value is two standard deviations above the mean, while -1 indicates it’s one standard deviation below. This standardization allows for meaningful comparisons across different datasets and is widely used in statistics and research to assess relative positions within data.